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It has always been the custom for the Asika to do as I did at feasts and sacrifices, but perhaps that is not the fashion among your women; perhaps they always remain veiled, as I have heard the worshippers of the Prophet do, and therefore you thought me immodest. I am very, very sorry, Vernoon. I pray you to forgive me who am ignorant and only do what I have been taught."
"Yes," answered Alan honestly, "very beautiful when you are quiet as now, not when you are dancing as you did the other night without your robes." When she understood what he meant the Asika actually blushed a little. "I am sorry," she answered in a voice that for her was quite humble. "I forget that it might seem strange in your eyes.
Seeing that these things interested him, the Asika volunteered the information through Jeekie, that this was a divining-bowl, and that if those who went before her had wished to learn the future, they caused Little Bonsa to float in it and found out all they wanted to know by her movements. She, however, she added, had other and better methods of learning things that were predestined.
With a groan or a sob, it was difficult to say which, the poor man rose and perceived Alan, whose face he now beheld for the first time, since the Asika had told him not to mask himself as they would meet no one. The sight of it seemed to fill him with jealous fury; at any rate he leapt at his rival, intending, apparently, to catch him by the throat.
But I awoke again and when I awoke the past was gone and the soul of the Asika filled me, bringing with it its awful memories, its gathered wisdom, its passion of love and hate, and its power to look backward and before." "Do you ever do these things?" asked Alan. "Backward, yes, before very little; since you came, not at all, because my heart is a coward and I fear what I might see. Oh!
"It is an offering to the lord of Little Bonsa," answered the head priest, bowing, "a gift from the Asika. The heaven-born white man sent word by his Ogula messengers that he desired gold. Here is the gold that he desired." Alan stared at the treasure, which after all was what he had come to seek. If only he had it safe in England, he would be a rich man and his troubles ended.
So absurd were their motions and tumblings and clownlike grimaces, for they had dragged off their masks, that roars of brutal laughter rose from the audience, in which the Asika joined.
Then she pleased as Punch, everything go smooth and Jeekie get no more kicks. Christian religion business very good, but won't wash in Asiki-land. Your reverend uncle find out that." Not wishing to pursue the argument, Alan changed the subject by asking his indignant retainer if he thought that the Asika had meant what she said when she offered to send the gold down to the coast. "Why not, Major?
That Little Bonsa sit in front room Asika's house, and when she want see things, she put it in big basin of gold, but I no tell you what it float in. Also once or twice every year they take out Little Bonsa; Asika wear it on head as mask, and whoever they meet they kill as offering to Little Bonsa, so that spirit come back to world to be priest of Bonsa.
She take a husband every year, and every year he die because she always hunt for right man but never find him." "Does she kill him then?" asked Barbara. "Oh! no, she no kill him, Miss, he kill himself at end of year, glad to get away from Asika and go to spirits.
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